


Walk Together Where We May

by Isis



Category: The Mark of the Horse Lord - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: First Kiss, Foreshadowing, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 20:29:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14755788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: Conory and Midir on the eve of the Feast of New Spears.





	Walk Together Where We May

**Author's Note:**

  * For [templemarker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/templemarker/gifts).



> Conory and Midir are both underage (by the standards of their tribes as well as by our modern standards) but there is no sexual content beyond kissing in this story. Similarly, there is an apparent (canon) character death, but considering what happens in the novel, it seems silly to warn for that here!
> 
> Thanks to Riventhorn for beta.

Conory lay with his chin resting on his folded arms, looking out toward the Gap of Loch Abha. He couldn’t see the big water from this vantage, only the smaller ponds sparkling in the afternoon sunshine, but he could see the parting between the trees, the lighter green foliage of alder trees at the edge of the loch, and beyond it the deep glen that led to the Cailleach’s country. He was halfway to falling asleep when a sting on his calf roused him. He cursed and rolled over, slapping at his leg, and heard Midir’s laugh behind him. So it had not been a midge or a biting fly. It had been a pebble Midir had thrown at him. 

He sighed, rolling back onto his stomach. “If you draw blood I’ll give you a beating worse than the one Dergdian gave you.” 

“And I’ll thrash you back,” retorted Midir. He had another pebble in his hand, which he tossed into the air, then caught again. He looked at Conory’s reddened leg meaningfully, then laughed, throwing the pebble high and wide, to tumble down the steep side of the hill. He flung himself down next to Conory. “It would be something to do, anyway. The sun won’t be down for ages yet.” 

The entire tribe had gathered all in Dun Monaidh for the Feast of the New Spears, all the clans of Earra-Ghyl. It had been exciting enough to take the fine bridles from the ponies and hang them up carefully, to take the ponies to the low grazing hills and show the men and their sons where to set their things. They had listened from the shadows as the men haggled with the merchants who had set up their booths along the wide outer court of the Dun, and sat by the fire to hear the harpers play; and they had eaten their fills during the first evening’s feast, watching enviously from the women’s side with the rest of the children, as the men boasted and laughed. 

But now the boys who would become men were gone beneath the earth, to the Place of Life, and the boys who were too young yet had to wait for sunset. The whole village had to wait, of course, but to Conory and Midir it was a particular hardship to not be able to go out into the forest or to hunt or play with the hounds. They chafed against the requirement to stay within the bounds of the Dun, and so they had taken themselves to the highest part of the fortress hill to pass the time.

It was worse, thought Conory, for Midir. He looked at his friend side-long, at the Royal Flower on his forehead, at his spill of coppery hair across his lean shoulders. It would be their turn the next Feast, to go as boys into darkness and to come out men. That was a mystery Conory was content to wait for. He was not one to run toward things, nor to drag his feet; he was of a temperament to let things happen as they would, at their proper time. 

But not Midir. Midir reached out to grasp the things he desired. Sometimes – most times – his hand was slapped away, which usually he bore with no resentment. Conory sometimes wondered whether Midir had really wanted that hound or that knife or that bit of leather, or if it had been only a whim, to see if he could get the thing he had set his eyes on. Certainly when he prevailed – when a warrior smiled indulgently and told the young prince that he might take that knife as a gift – Midir was as careless with his winnings as he was with his losing. 

What Midir wanted now, though, as they lay in the grass at the highest, farthest part of the dun, was beyond his grasping. A sullen envy tinged his boredom. It would last, Conory knew, only until the sun set behind the slender curved rind of the horned moon, and the new-made men emerged into the world to feast with the rest of the tribes. Midir would feast as well, laughing and joking, and if his jokes were a bit sharper that night from the longing to be one of them, the hurt would not last long.

Still, Conory would not see his friend sulk, if only because it cast a pall on the otherwise bright day. “I myself am in no hurry to become a man,” he said, plucking a blade of grass and chewing it at the edge of his mouth. “Then I would have to go from the Boys’ House, and I would miss grandmother Shula’s fine deer-meat stew.”

“Na na, you’d marry a girl, and she’d make it for you.”

Conory felt his face heat. Though his hair had darkened over the past years from the barley-pale shade it had been, his skin was still fair enough to show red on his cheeks. He laughed, to cover his discomfort. “What, you think Fionhula or Eithne can cook as well as old Shula?” 

“Neither would have you, so it doesn’t matter, does it?” Midir poked him in the arm. It was doubtless true; Fionhula and Eithne were the prettiest of the girls, both grown tall and slender in the last year – taller than either Midir or Conory – and when they put their heads close, one crowned with coppery hair almost as bright as Midir’s, the other a fine sun-touched brown, he was certain they weren’t talking of him. It wasn’t even that he cared who they talked about, for he’d just plucked their names out of the air, the first ones he’d thought of. Still, to hear it said aloud stung him, and more so that it was Midir saying it, and so he had to pretend it did not sting at all.

“Then I’ll starve to bones and skin, and you’ll have nobody to hunt with and beat you at Fox and Geese.”

“You can cook a hare over a fire as well as I can. Which we’ll have to do until Fionhula and Eithne learn the secrets of the stew-pot.”

“Even though they won’t have us anyway?”

“We don’t need them,” said Midir. He’d turned where he lay, so he was on his side, regarding Conory with a cool, appraising gaze. “They’re only girls.”

“When we are men, they will be women.”

“And what do men need with women? They are for getting children, that is all.”

“And for cooking stew,” Conory reminded him. And, he knew, for a great many other things, but he would not argue with Midir, not now, when he finally had his mind on something other than the unfairness of being too young for the initiation mysteries of the New Spears.

“And that, yes.” Midir stretched his arm out and rested it lightly on Conory’s shoulder. “But for all else, I would rather have you by my side, cousin. We have been together since our beginnings, and we will go together into the Place of Life, and maybe we will go together to the place beyond that.”

Warmth suffused Conory again, but this time it was pleasure, not embarrassment. “It is in my heart that we shall walk together where we may,” he said.

Midir gave him an easy smile, but there was something lurking in his bright eyes, a look Conory knew well. It was the look that Midir gave him when he intended to do something rash or something forbidden, and it usually meant trouble; for as Midir had said, they were ever by each other’s side. “And where we may not?”

Conory’s unease deepened. Did Midir intend to break the restrictions laid on them, to go from Dun Monaidh, though they had been told to stay? But then this thought, and all others, were swept aside, as Midir rolled toward him, his hand still on Conory’s shoulder, and kissed him.

It was not the kiss of cousins or even of brothers. He might not yet be a man by the lights of the tribe, but Conory knew that much. It was the soft kiss of a lover, lingering on the lips, and Midir’s hand squeezing his shoulder, bringing him ever closer, made it clear it was a deliberate thing.

It was as though an eagle had swooped down and taken his ability to move. He had reached out to return Midir’s half-embrace out of nothing more than reflex, but his hand seemed frozen on Midir’s hard hip-bone; he wanted to press his lips against Midir’s, but could not make himself do so. No thoughts in his head other than a mad swirl of _We must not do this_ and _Oh, I have wanted this_ and, ridiculously, _He must be_ very _bored_.

Then, between one heartbeat and the next, Midir pulled away, and Conory found he could breathe again. Midir looked at him for only a moment, his reddened lips curving in a half-smile, before rolling away and returning his gaze to the Gap of Loch Abha. “Sa, Conory,” he murmured softly, almost so softly that Conory had to strain to make out the words. “We shall walk together, as we have always.”

* * *

That afternoon was upmost in Conory’s mind as he walked with the Sun Priests and other boys of the tribe between the standing stones that lined the forecourt of the Place of Life. Perhaps it had been an affront to Lugh Shining-Spear for the young Horse Lord to say such a thing, to do such a thing, at the last Feast of New Spears. Perhaps all that had happened in the months since then had been his fault, his fault and Midir’s. The gods had not been satisfied with the poor harvest and the Red Crests’ attacks, had not been satisfied to take the life of their King; they must take Midir as well. 

_You should have been with me_ , he thought to himself. They should have been walking side-by-side, as always, to learn the mysteries and become men together. But that had not been Midir’s path. Midir had drowned in the loch and taken that last path, the one beyond life. _I would have walked with you, even_ _there._

But Conory’s path led between the great lintel stones and into the tunnel that lay beyond. He must leave Midir behind with the other things that belonged to his childhood. Straightening his shoulders, he followed Tuathal the Wise into the Place of Life.

**Author's Note:**

> _There were other things he knew about Conory, a great many other things, including some that Midir had never told him. But he did not recite them now. They had had to be learned, but though the Arena years had hardened him to most things, he still disliked trampling more often than need be in another man’s private territory._
> 
> If this isn't Sutcliff coyly implying that Conory and Midir were very very very close friends, I'll eat my copy of _The Mark of the Horse Lord_.


End file.
